Mira smiled, as though I'd just said something witty. 'Quite,' she agreed. 'But I did have other motives for coming along, you'll recall.'
'Of course,' I said, dredging my memory. Something about strengthening her claim to the throne back home, and finding a consort able to help her grab it. 'I'm glad they seem to be working out for you too.' She seemed to have given up on the ridiculous idea of persuading a Space Marine to elope with her, and for a moment I wondered who else she'd found who looked like a suitable candidate. One of the Serendipitan delegation, presumably - they can't all have been as pointless as they looked.
Her smile spread. 'For both of us, surely.'
'Well, yes,' I agreed. It wouldn't take much to turn my liaison job into a sinecure guaranteed to keep me comfortably out of harm's way for years to come, which was pretty much as good as it ever got for someone in my position. I raised my goblet, in a slightly ironic toast.
'Here's to both of us getting what we want.'
'To both of us,' Mira said, her glass clinking against mine, and I found myself genuinely wishing her well, which for someone as focussed on my own concerns as I usually was, came as a bit of a surprise. Her cheeks coloured slightly, and as she lowered her drink, she looked at me in a manner I found a little odd. 'Are you sure about this?'
'Of course I am,' I said, touched by her concern. The sooner I could feel a world beneath my feet again the better.
'Good.' She became businesslike again. 'Serendipita doesn't do much trade with us, but there's a Charter ship or two linking the systems, with only a couple of intermediate layovers. We should be able to get passage within a few months.' She looked at me speculatively. 'Unless you've got some strings you can pull? We might as well use them while we can.'
'While we can?' I echoed, feeling oddly like a character in a ballroom farce [91]. Her words were undeniably Gothic, but the meaning behind them kept eluding me.
Mira nodded. 'While you still have some influence with the Munitorum,' she elucidated, as though that made perfect sense. 'Could you get us berths on a military ship?'
'I suppose so,' I said, falling back on the card player's instinct which generally helped me out at moments like this. Time and again I've found that if you appear to understand what's going on, and don't panic, sooner or later you'll get a clue. Everything will fall into place, and no one will ever know you were out of your depth. It's an important skill for a commissar, too, come to think of it, as we're supposed to look calm and in control whatever happens. It's remarkably difficult to rally troops under fire when you're dithering about screaming ''Frak, oh frak, we're all going to die!''. So I nodded judiciously, as though she'd just asked a perfectly reasonable question.
'If you wanted to hurry back, of course.'
'Good point,' she rejoined, smiling at me again, in a manner I can only describe as curiously cloying. 'Let's enjoy ourselves for a few weeks while we can. Serendipita's quite a pleasant world, apparently.'
'Something to do with the ring system, I suppose,' I said, having picked up a little bit about conditions there from Torven and the others.
'I hear it's quite spectacular.'
'Then you've talked me into it.' Mira's smile became coquettish. 'We might as well enjoy the honeymoon before we have to get down to work.'
'Exactly,' I heard my mouth say, the pieces finally dropping into place, and our earlier conversation taking on an entirely new meaning which had escaped me at the time. She hadn't been out to bag herself an Astartes at all. The Liberator of Perlia would do perfectly well as a consort, particularly as I seemed to be a hero on Viridia as well.
A chill prickle of panic chased itself down my spine. I can't deny that, in the abstract, the notion of continuing to enjoy Mira's more obvious charms indefinitely, along with the material comforts formalising our relationship would provide, had its appeal, but the idea was utterly preposterous. The Commissariat wasn't like one of the confection-box regiments[92] my would-be fiancee and her aristocratic cronies amused themselves by playing at officers in, which would cheerfully accept a resigned commission whenever more pressing or diverting business presented itself. If I abandoned my assignment to return to Viridia with her I'd be branded a deserter, and the only question left open about my future would be whether the ensuing tribunal had me shot by a firing squad, or packed me off to a penal legion to let the enemies of the Emperor save them the ammo. No doubt Mira believed that being the consort of a planetary governor would be sufficient protection from the wrath of my erstwhile colleagues, but I was under no such illusion: once you put on the scarlet sash, it's there till they bury you in it (assuming they can find enough bits for the ceremony, which in our vocation is never entirely certain). Even if you make it through to retirement intact, you can still be yanked back into the field pretty much on a whim, as I've found out only too well these last few years[93] .
Even so, I hesitated before speaking. Mira was clearly under the impression that I'd not only divined her purpose, but somehow signalled my agreement to her absurd proposal. I knew only too well how she was likely to react to being disabused. I'd seen the lurking virago erupt from behind the refined facade over matters so minor they'd barely registered with me, and now I was about to take a chainsword to her most cherished ambitions. Worse still, of course, would be the blow to her vanity. Most women like to think they're irresistible, and discovering that she wasn't wouldn't sit well at all. Add to that the fact that I'd seen her kill people without turning an immaculately groomed hair, and my wariness becomes even more understandable.
All this being so, it can come as little surprise to hear that I remained paralysed by indecision, nodding and responding with automatic platitudes, while Mira prattled on about her grandiose plans for Viridia once we'd consolidated her grip on it, most of which seemed to consist of score-settling with people I'd never heard of. Whether I would eventually have found the courage to speak out, or just jumped on the first transport ship back to Coronus while her back was turned, I'll never know, however. I was just on the point of pouring myself the largest amasec I thought I could get away with, when Jurgen returned to my quarters, his face composed in the faintly dyspeptic expression he tended to adopt whenever he felt an air of gravitas was required.
'Sorry to interrupt your meal, sir,' he said, 'but your presence is requested on the bridge. They seem to think they've found it.'
SIXTEEN
SEIZING GRATEFULLY ON my aide's timely intervention, I lost no time in hurrying to the bridge, leaving Mira happily planning her coup d'etat[94] with all the enthusiasm most women of her rank reserve for cotillions. Though my mind continued to reel with the shock of the realisation of what I'd blundered into, I must confess that the bustle of activity which met my eyes the moment I entered the nerve centre of the Revenant was almost sufficient to drive it out entirely.
'Contact confirmed,' the auspex operator was saying as I stepped through the doors, which were still showing faint traces of orkish small-arms fire despite the best efforts of the shipboard artisans to restore the devotional images adorning them, and the air of expectation suffusing the chamber became so dense I almost had to resort to hacking through it with my chainsword. 'It's definitely a hard return [95], refined metals by the signature.' For the first time I heard a tremor of suppressed excitement in the even tones I'd grown used to hearing from the Chapter serfs manning the bridge, and, despite my own concerns, felt an answering flicker of it within myself.
If this truly was the end of our quest, it could hardly have come at a more propitious time. It meant I'd be on my way to Serendipita almost immediately, and once I was there, I'd be able to avoid Mira far more effectively than I possibly could in the cramped confines of the Revenant. A faint flicker of optimism even dared to raise the hope that, once we were back on terra firma, and she was again immersed in her own social environment, she'd begin to see the huge gulf between our respective milieux for what it was, and abandon the absurd project she'd conceived of her own volition. (Not that it seemed particularly likely. When she made her mind up about something, she pursued it as tenaciously as a gaunt scenting blood.) It was possible, however, that I could get off the ship before she noticed I was gone, citing orders and duty, which would at least buy me a breathing space.
